Looking for autumn activities in Rome? You’ve come to the right place – here’s full list of fall excursions in Rome. With the fall equinox ushering in the autumn, it’s a great time to turn your thoughts to the season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ and channel your inner Romantic poet. Keats wrote his famous ode ‘to Autumn’ on September 19th 1819 after a Sunday walk in the English village of Winchester, but here are four ideas for getting in the mood for fall right here in Rome…

Autumn activities in Rome: visit Keats grave

Visit the grave of Keats in the Non-Catholic Cemetery at Piramide

John Keats (1795-1821) loved the autumn weather in England so much that he wrote about it, prefacing the ode ‘to Autumn’ in a letter to his friend John Hamilton Reynolds: “How beautiful the season is now – How fine the air. A temperate sharpness about it… I never lik’d stubble fields so much as now… Somehow a stubble plain looks warm – in the same way that some pictures look warm – this struck me so much in my Sunday’s walk that I composed upon it.” Keats was nearing the end of the incredibly prolific year in which he had written much of his finest poetry and was never more in love with his native soil. But the English winters never agreed with him; after the symptoms of tuberculosis appeared early in 1820, he set off to Rome in search of more temperate climes, making last revisions to ‘Bright Star’ en route, a poem which would be his last. The journey was wrought with problems and Keats and his friend Joseph Severn didn’t reach the city until November 14th, by which time the weather was already turning chilly. He illness grew steadily worse until his death on February 23rd 1861 aged just 25 in the villa he had taken on the Spanish Steps, now the Keats-Shelley House.

The Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome: Via Caio Cestio 6, 00153 Roma

Opening hours: Monday-Saturday from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm (last entrance: 4.30 pm)

Sundays and public holidays 9.00 am to 1.00 pm (last entrance: 12.30 pm

Entrance: free, donation welcome

Autumn activities in Rome: go foraging in the woods

Lake Bracciano is just a hour’s train ride from Rome, but home to some wonderful flora and fauna which evoke the seasons. Blackberries are ripening on thick brambles along the lake at this time, while you’ll still find green figs on some of the roadside trees. On the slopes above Trevignano Romano, chestnuts have started to fall in their bright green, spiky jackets – wonderful for roasting at home in the oven. A little further afield, towards Lake Vico, hazelnut groves flank the winding lanes. Most of these are on private property but plenty of nuts still fall along the roadside on the way from Capranica to Ronciglione – use your discretion and don’t trespass. Meanwhile, green and black fig trees populate the old Appia Antica and are home to a rich crop (if you beat the birds and the locals who keep a keen eye on things). If you’re not sure what you’re looking for, take a good spotting guide and don’t eat anything you don’t recognise.

Visit a sagra or food festival in the Castelli Romani

If you don’t want to gather your own taste of autumn, try a local food festival or sagra celebrating the season of fruitfulness. Up in the Castelli Romani, there is a rich programme of chestnut and porchetta sagre, while next weekend the traditional grape festival in Colonna is being amplified to also include the local crops of kiwi-fruit, peaches and Castelli wine. Raise a glass to someone else’s hard work whilst admiring the reddening trees up in the Alban Hills. Otherwise, try a wine tasting in one of vineyards in Frascati.

The National Roman Museum - visit and restaurant review of Palazzo Massimo in Rome, housing ancient Roman sculptures and Livia Restaurant review
The National Roman Museum

Autumn activities in Rome: visit a museum

The National Roman Museum at Palazzo Massimo is one of best museums in Rome, and perhaps the exhibition space which best reflects the history of Rome. While the museum itself is dominated by Greek bronzes, Roman marbles and intricate mosaics, the National Roman Museum restaurant at Palazzo Massimo is also worth a visit for gourmet dining with a view.

Meanwhile, visitors to the Keats-Shelley House get to peer into not only into the life of autumn-lover John Keats, but also Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley. Look out for temporary exhibitions enriching the permanent collections with some other little-seen treasures from England.

 Keats-Shelley House: Piazza di Spagna, 26  00187 Rome

Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 10.00-13.00 and 14.00-18.00; Sunday: closed.

Entrance: Adults €5.00; under 18s and over 65s €4.00

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